Edmond Jabès

Edmond Jabès (1912 – 1991) was a French writer and poet of Egyptian origin, and one of the best-known literary figures in French literature after the Second World War.
As an Egyptian Jew, he was forced into exile by the Suez Crisis of 1956, and fled to Paris, where he joined the Surrealist community, although he was never a formal member of the group. He lived in France for the rest of his life and, in 1987, received France's grand prize for poetry. An important voice in postwar French poetry, Edmond Jabès eludes categorization as a writer. His work is a pastiche of dialogue, aphorism, fragments, poetry, and song; much of his work focuses on the book as a place where ideas – of exile, God, the self – are addressed through questions and echoes.
Although he was an atheist, his writing refers to Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah. In an interview, Edmond Jabès explained: "For me, the words 'Jew' and 'God' are, it is true, metaphors. 'God' is the metaphor of emptiness; 'Jew' represents the torment of God, of emptiness." His work demonstrates a profound melancholy and an acute awareness that the Jew is constituted and always remains in exile.
"Always in a foreign country, the poet uses poetry as an interpreter."